


Meet Me in Hell

by Megpryor



Series: Jed's Journal Entries [5]
Category: The West Wing
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-10
Updated: 2020-10-10
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:07:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,872
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26927092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Megpryor/pseuds/Megpryor
Summary: "I can't sleep. I stay awake. Five nights.""Josh was shot." "Me, too."The private journal of Jed Bartlet.
Series: Jed's Journal Entries [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1943413





	Meet Me in Hell

**Meet Me in Hell**

**The Private Journal of Josiah E. Bartlet, President of the United States**

It’s almost five AM and I’m scribbling in this journal. Sleeping has escaped my attention for four days, well, four nights, now. I can’t sleep and it’s because of the most stupid reason. As usual, it all starts with Toby. The man has the uncanny ability to push my buttons with virtually everything he says. I think he purposely sets me up to be annoyed with him, reveling in seeing me blow up and then throw him out of the office. He’s the reason I’m not sleeping. 

The Iowa Caucus was the most recent thing I did to irritate him. He wants me to attack Ritchie (or whomever is going to be the Republican candidate) as often as I can. That’s not my style. I move more slowly and a little more cautiously. He hates that I take my time. 

Attack dogs don’t care about outcomes and he’s my attack dog wanting me to go after the Republican candidate just because I can. He thinks in the moment. Projecting out days or weeks later is beyond his scope. Aggression is fine. I can do that. I actually do that when it’s appropriate. He doesn’t have to think about consequences the way I do. 

Consequences is often where we differ. I like to project far down the road and anticipate the problems we will inevitably encounter. Can’t foresee them all but it is good practice to work things out to a logical conclusion. That’s the purpose of studying economics. We take hundreds of variables and combine them in thousands of ways and try to anticipate the outcomes. Sometimes it works. More often, it doesn’t. It helps develop a framework that guides us to make good decisions in regard to policy and practice. 

Shit, I’m talking like an “economics professor with a big old stick up his ass.” I think Mandy accused me of that a few years ago. Mandy, hmmm. There’s a name that hasn’t been in my head for a long time. She shipped off to some big job in Manhattan. Oh well, it made Josh more livable. He belongs with Donna anyhow. Someday, he’ll figure it out. 

Digression. I do that a lot. Back to the problem at hand. Toby figured out that my father was abusive. He figured out that my father hit me. Then he had the effrontery to tell me my father hated me. In the world according to Ziegler, you only hit people you hate. Yeah, my father did not think much of me. I’m not sure what made me angrier; the accusation he made or the fact that it was so obvious to him. 

For some unknown reason, I still care for my father and for his reputation. He was a bully to most of the boys at Exeter. None of them said anything to me but I knew they were afraid of him. He was cold, unwilling to listen to us, eager to punish (though I was the only one who felt his fist). My brother Jon was never hit like I was. I’m glad for Jon but also a bit envious of his favored status. Now I can’t sleep. When I try, I see Father and he is at the brink of pounding me. He was a lot bigger, six inches on me in height and about 40 pounds more bulk. I was a skinny kid incapable of defending myself for a lot of reasons. I physically couldn’t. Like I said, he was a lot bigger. Also both my brother and I were indoctrinated with respecting your elders regardless of who they were. I was taught to respect and obey. I always did. Then he took a belt to me that wasn’t necessary. 

How did Toby figure out my father hit me? I’ve worked hard at building this façade where I’m genial, a bit of corny wit, a father figure, all that good old boy kind of thing. Toby figured that out, too. He knew it was my way to appeal to the general population. That upsets him. I shouldn’t be downplaying my intelligence. Writing that feels peculiar. Acknowledging my IQ sounds like ego. I have enough ego without needing a high IQ. 

I don’t like living two different lives. I disregard my intelligence and put it away when I think people won’t react to me very well. It’s not easy being the smartest kid in the class. Nobody likes the smartest kid. I know that my father was jealous of me but if it could have been possible to drop my IQ by 80 points, I’d have been happier. High IQ scores are nothing more than a DNA mutation. It’s nothing I wanted. I didn’t work for it. It just landed in my brain through a fluke of genetic cross-breeding. 

Then Leo gets involved. Even more than Josh, he’s got this thing about fixing people and he wants to fix me. So now we are seeing Dr. Stanley Keyworth. I’m using the royal “we” there. I am seeing Keyworth because I can’t sleep. At least Leo thinks that why he brought in Stanley. Leo doesn’t realize the true underlying cause of my sleeplessness. If I’m lucky, he never will. 

He and Josh brought Keyworth up to my study. The good doctor and I talked for two hours and it wasn’t until over an hour in that I got around to admitting what Toby accused my father of doing. I don’t ever remember saying it out loud before. “My father never liked me at all.” 

It sounded pathetic and I’m not sure why I told this stranger what I could barely tell my wife. Client/doctor privilege? Maybe. Regardless, I told a shrink that my father never liked me and used to hit me. I’m fucking President of the United States and I’m whining like a four year old. “Daddy doesn’t like me. Boo hoo.” 

It makes me feel childish to talk about it. He hated me. I knew it. My mother knew it and did nothing to rescue me. My brother knew it but he never stood by me. I don’t blame him. He didn’t want to start getting pounded like I was. My brother Jon didn’t get hit. Father’s fists were only meant for me. 

Abbey once accused me of being too much of a loner. That might be hard to believe considering how much I like people but when she met me, it was the absolute truth. I had my head in books all the time . She gave me a life beyond school and books. Without her, I’d have been dead by now. I’m not being dramatic here. She changed my life by giving me her life. 

Digression is my habit. Back to my journal entry for this inglorious night. That shrink Keyworth got me admitting things; e.g. I’m embarrassed to be a battered child, and insanely proud to be a descendent of the second signer of the Declaration of Independence. Pride has its limits but it’s less difficult to live with pride than shame. 

Pride is arrogance. So what? It’s an accusation I’ve heard before. I have this IQ. Smart people are typically hated but they’re admired. I can live with that. Appreciation is easy to put up with. 

However, Stanley kept bringing me back to how my father hated me. He kept putting me into shame mode. I’m not sure why. I thought therapy was supposed to make you forget the shit from the past, make you feel better. Looks like I was wrong. I don’t think two hours in therapy is going to make me sleepy. More likely to cause nightmares. 

Being hated by a biological parent is unexplainable. I couldn’t tell anyone. They wouldn’t have believed me. So, to get through life, I hid behind the myth that my father loved me, cared for me, didn’t use a belt on me too many times to count. I can’t forget the pain. Its presence attached itself to my soul. Ah, isn’t that poetic. 

Writing about this has me feeling the back of his hand knocking me on my ass. I’m not saying I remember any particular incident. Even today, I can sense the intensity of eyes when he hit me; I feel the pain, the stinging. I’d swear that if I looked in a mirror right now, I’d see a bruise growing on my face. I have to stop for a few minutes. My hands are starting to shake. Breathing is getting a little edgy and my heart sounds loud. I swear I can hear it. I’ve never had a panic attack before. And I won’t have one now. A Bartlet can never panic. I’ll be back. 

Just grabbed a cup of coffee that won’t help in the sleep department but it doesn’t matter what I drink. I’m not sleeping tonight. It’s probably decaf anyhow. Abbey has made sure that certain foods and drink aren’t part of my life any longer. Back to business. 

I didn’t enjoy Stanley accusing me of worrying more about Electoral College than serving the American people. I don’t do that. He was pretty insistent that I did. Yeah, I care about Electoral College. I have to. It’s part of being able to do the real work. If I don’t have any support backing me then the things I want to accomplish will not be achieved. I didn’t run for the office to be a puppet or to be a good hairdo and handshake. 

Audacity can be inspirational but Keyworth’s wasn’t. When are people going to stop thinking that Lincoln was the be all and end all of all Presidents? None of us can compare to the great Lincoln but we’re all put up against his legacy. Okay, he was impressively brilliant. 

Keeping the union together was important in our national puberty. So many Americans walked into slaughter over three days in Gettysburg. I’ve been there. About 50,000 soldiers died in that one battle. Lincoln made decisions that caused those 50,000 lives to be lost. Not sure how he lived with that. I fall apart when we lose a single serviceman or woman. How does a man rationalize Gettysburg? I’ve read that Honest Abe suffered from depression and had trouble sleeping. Maybe I’m more like Lincoln that Stanley thinks. 

Now this part is embarrassing. I pulled the “I’m the President” card to make Keyworth stay longer. The son of a bitch stood up to me and told me that he didn’t care that I was the President. Most people don’t challenge my authority. This guy, whom I didn’t know, had it in his head that he was calling the shots. Turns out, he was. 

He left the study with a caveat for me. He thinks I could use some help right now. I think maybe he’s right. It’s almost six AM. My wakeup call rings in 30 minutes. Nights of not sleeping just added another casualty. I have to sleep some night soon. The option is to drop dead and I’m not ready to do that. I’d probably meet up with my father in hell.


End file.
